Jesse Smith of ORNL delivers filament to Pellissippi State Community College. ORNL is one of the partners who donated filament to Pellissippi State’s MegaLab for 3D printing personal protective equipment.

Pellissippi State Community College recently 3D-printed1,700 headbands for face shields health care professionals wear to protect them from infectious diseases such as Covid-19. But Pellissippi State didn’t do it alone.

Knox County Schools’ Career Magnet Academy, Roane State Community Collegeand Oak Ridge National Laboratory donated rolls of filament for Pellissippi State’s 3D printers. Filaments are thermoplastics that melt rather than burn when heated. Filament is fed into a 3D printer, where it isshaped and molded into a 3D object that solidifies when cooled.

CMA, a public high school located in the same building as Pellissippi State’s Strawberry Plains Campus, donated 13 kilograms (about 13 rolls) of filament, which was used to make 400 headbands;Roane State donated 8 kilograms (about 8 rolls) of filament, which was used to make 225 headbands; and ORNL donated about 18 kilograms (about 18 rolls) of filament, which was used to make 500 headbands.

These donations helped Pellissippi State continue making headbands for a project announced by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on March 23. The headbands were 3D-printed in the Pellissippi State’s MegaLab on its Strawberry Plains Campus before being inspected, boxed and shipped to Austin Peay State University, the college that developed the prototype.

There the headbands were attached to transparent face shields for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency to distribute to health care facilities and professionals who were facing shortages of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.

Cranking out 1,700 headbands was a massive effort to undertake with only MegaLab Director Andy Polnicki, Tim Wilson and Todd Evans of Business and Community Services,and members of the Pellissippi State Campus Police, all of whom areessential workers allowed to report to campus during the governor’s Safer at Home Order.

ORNL donated 18 kilograms of filament to Pellissippi State Community College to help its MegaLab continue 3D printing headbands for transparent plastic face shields.

“We built the printerspace in the MegaLab less than six months ago,” Polnickisaid.“It was intended to support summer camps in 3D printing, to provide a ‘Maker Space’ for CMA and Pellissippi State studentsand to offer an Additive Manufacturing class for our Engineering students. I would have never expected the space to become a production area run by our police force and myself.”

Each of the MegaLab’s 3D printers produced more than 140 headbands – “likely more printing time than most printers see in a lifetime of use,” Polnicki noted. More than 56 rolls of filament were consumed by the project.

“We are thankful for our employees and for community partners like CMA, Roane State and ORNL that contributed to this monumental project,” said Pellissippi State President L. Anthony Wise Jr. “In times like these, we are reminded how much we can accomplish when we work together for the greater good.”